President Buhari condemns internecine violence in Kaduna, urges stateholders to embrace mediation

President Muhammadu Buhari has urged the actors in the communal and persistent violence in Kaduna State to come to terms with the fact that mutual violence has no winners, but losers on both sides of the conflict.

Reacting to the endless carnage in Kaduna State on Saturday, President Buhari said, “I am deeply troubled by the fact that sanctity of life is now treated with such reckless disregard that people derive joy in shedding the blood of others or perceived enemies.”

This was made known in a statement issued, signed in Abuja on Saturday by the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, copy of which was sent to The DEFENDER.

According to the statement, President Buhari said: “inhumanity has replaced compassion in the hearts and minds of the perpetrators of these atrocities.”

“No responsible leader would go to bed happy to see his citizens savagely killing one another on account of ethnic and religious bigotry”, he further noted sadly.

According to President Buhari, “Violence cannot be the solution to these persistent conflicts as long as people resort to deliberate provocations, revenge and counter revenge.”

He said that, “While the government remains committed to protecting its citizens, the communities involved must also put their shoulder to the wheel in order to find a lasting solution.”

President Buhari noted that “lack of cooperation by those involved might frustrate government’s efforts towards finding a lasting solution, especially if those efforts are politicised.”

According to the President, “If the people resist government’s efforts to hold the perpetrators and their sponsors accountable, it would be very difficult to bring the violence to a permanent end.”

President Buhari regretted that “everything is politicised in Nigeria, including the efforts to bring offenders to justice, because their people will rise up in arms to resist their arrests and prosecution.”

He described hate, bigotry and prejudice as “deadly poisons that have infected the human psyche on such scale that people now don’t have any moral inhibitions about taking life.”

The President also appealed to the warring communities to stop inhibiting the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA’s efforts to deliver food, medicines and temporary shelter to the victims of the violence who are in urgent need of assistance.